Do you currently write a Lifestyle or Fashion Blog? We want YOU to become a member of our Guest Blogger program here on, The Monogrammed Life! You can meet all of the lovely ladies who currently write for our blog here. While you are at it, you should definitely check out their blogs and follow along as well!

We created the guest blogger program to be mutually beneficial! We want to help you promote your blog through Marley Lilly social networking resources which in turn help us with article submission and reviewing our products! While we do have two full time Marketing employees who write articles for the blog, they do not have enough time to properly prepare and execute blog posts on a daily basis!

This is where you come in!We hope to add 3-5 Guest Bloggers to our program in Janurary!
We may add more or less depending on the number of applications received!

We are looking for guest writers that would be featured on our blog on a weekly to semi-weekly basis that come from all different parts of the country and have one thing in common, a love for monograms and all things fabulous! You will be featured in our “Meet the Bloggers” section with a bio, photos and links to your blog. We always give 100% credit toward your blog which creates backlinks to your own blog from the main Monogrammed Life blog. We anticipate that with the extra exposure we would provide your article with through our channels, you would then gain new followers for your own blog or social media accounts.

We are looking for articles that are interesting, witty, and contain great photographs. We want to talk about life, marriage, college, high school, wedding planning, babies, photography, and your Mom’s pedicure experience last weekend. We also want to vary articles about life topics that our shoppers can relate to with topics about Marley Lilly products. While the blog is called “The Monogrammed Life,” the purpose is not to write about monogrammed products from every company, just one! We are doing this to help create links and information on the web regarding Marley Lilly, so all topics relating to monogrammed products will most likely be something that is linkable to our site and can be purchased from Marley Lilly. We do want to share great deals and fashion tips with our readers for products that are not monogrammed and can be purchased from other companies though! For example, we wrote an article last week on how much we love some of the new Jack Rogers Sandals, they are not a direct competitor and our readers also love their products!

I know what you are thinking - what's in it for you?

The benefit for you is this: We have a database of over 500,000 customers that receive communication from us with links to our blog and thousands more shoppers and ladies on our website on a daily basis. Your blog and links to your site would be a part of our blog, which is one of the tabs on our website and is frequented by all of these shoppers. We get a lot of requests from people to review our products and post about it on their blog, but instead of just sending the products to everyone that asks, we would prefer to work with a group of people where we can “get something” out of it as well, hence using your brilliant articles (with your name and blog attached of course). We don’t want our own blog to be “just about reviews,” we want it to be about interesting topics like the ones on the blog you write that would appeal to all of our readers. We think most bloggers that we will work with will most likely not write “extra” articles for themonogrammedlife.com, they will just allow us to feature some of their already written articles on the website. Plus - as a thank you, for every 6 articles (they can be about any topic!) we choose from your blog and reprint with permission from you, we will send a FREE Marley Lilly review product with your initials on it for you to keep and review for our blog.

Are there requirements? YES!

Blogger Qualifications

You must have a customer account at MarleyLilly.com (if you have made a Marley Lilly purchase in the past, you should have an existing account)

You must have a minimum of 3,000 followers when combining your blog following, Facebook following, twitter account and Instagram account (page views do not count)

You must have a stateside mailing address

Are we flexible if you write an awesome blog? YES!
Don't have 3,000 combined followers? You are still more than welcome to apply to become one of our guest bloggers! When we started this program, some of our guest bloggers only had a few hundred followers and have grown substantially since then!

Well…what are you waiting for?? We want YOU to join The Monogrammed Life Family! Just APPLY HERE

Please include the following information in the form:

Link to your blog

A short bio about you and your blog which will help us get to know what makes you special

Links to 1-2 posts which you think would interest our readers

A short paragraph explain WHY we should pick you!

You MUST include all of the information above to be considered for one of our guest blogger positions.

Due to the volume of applications we are receiving, we will not be able to follow up for this information if it is not included in your original message. Thanks for understanding!

We have worked hard all month to make sure that all of our wonderful customers have a very happy and monogrammed Christmas! We will be spending today with our families and are so thankful for each of you! Be sure to share your photos with using the hashtag #MonogrammedChristmas! We will share them on our social media accounts all day!

Since we know a lot of you received gift cards to our website for the holidays, we wanted to share with you a few of our favorite items! All of these items are under $55! If you are like me - then Christmas money literally BURNS a hole in your pocket! Why not head over to Marleylilly.com and purchase one of these amazing monogrammed gifts?

We are also running a 24-hour coupon right now! Spend $30 on Christmas Day and receive a FREE statement necklace! Enter the coupon code MERRYMERRY30 at checkout on Marleylilly.com to receive this amazing free gift! Coupon code expires on December 25, 2013, at Midnight EST.

There are so many reasons I look forward to the Christmas season, especially all of the fun holiday recipes. Something about peppermint just always says Christmas time to me and I love to include it in most of my Christmas baking. Thinking of making a yummy peppermint treat this year..check out some of these amazing recipes. Whether you're attending a cookie exchange or a holiday party these recipes are sure to be a hit!

I received a lot of requests asking to do a post on how to style the J.Crew Excursion vest (aka the piece of clothing I never take off). Whenever I don't know what to wear, chances are I opt for this vest! My favorite way to wear it with is lots of layers -- in this outfit I have on my new favorite cable knit sweater and a button down with a fun rhinestone collar. Ok I have to fill you in on a little secret about this button down.... If you're like me I'm sure you've obsessed over this top at one point in the last couple months, am I right? I totally did but wasn't feeling the expensive price tag. So little did I know that Kohl's had the exact same shirt but with long sleeves on sale for (drum roll please) $11! I nearly fainted of happiness. Needless to say I bought one in each color and have been wearing them nonstop. Just call me the frugal fashionista!

I don't make desserts often, but looking through Pinterest has inspired me to make some type of holiday dessert! I've pinned multiple holiday desserts that all lookdelicious. The recipes seem pretty easy to follow, too. These desserts would be great for parties, friends, or just to share with your family. Check out my favorites below!

1. During the Holidays, parks are usually decorated with pretty lights and more, go ahead and take a stroll through and maybe even hit-up the ice skating area after for a little more fun. Don’t forget your hat and gloves though!

2. Make it a double (no, I’m not talking about your coffee) Plan a fun double date with another couple, maybe dinner and a sports game or concert to keep it fun.

3. Head to the city for the day (or out of it if you live there, or try a new one!) Make a day of it and go explore a city you haven’t been to in a while. Walk around, go shopping, have lunch and simply take it all in.

4. Stay in and have a movie marathon. Love a certain series (maybe Harry Potter?) cook dinner or get take out and see how many movies you can get through. If you’re really big fanatics you can quiz each other to see how much they remember about the movie (anyone remember Hagrid’s first name?) Caution though, if you’re competitive, this can get dangerous…

5. Take a cooking class together, or if you’re not into cooking try a pottery or some other fun activity you will both enjoy.

6. Do a lunch date instead. Take advantage of the fact that lots of delicious restaurants have great lunch deals and specials- have a yummy meal and save some money.

7. Turn off all of your electronics and have a board game night. Have fun throwing it back to when you were a kid and a cell phone was just some clunky phone your parents sometimes had with them.

8. Go to the zoo. I absolutely love going to zoos- I always have and probably always will. They aren’t just for kids, trust me, every age loves adorable animals.

9. Make a day of doing what the other one loves to do. He likes golf? You like going to plays? Hit up golf in the morning and go to a play in the evening- it’s the best of both worlds.

10. Recreate your first date together and try to get it as close as you can.

p.s. you don’t have to necessarily do these with your fellow, grab your favorite gal pal and have some fun with her instead!

Kind of like the only certain things are death and taxes, the only things you can blog about when nothing is happening are fashion and food.

Today, you get food. :)I made this recipe earleir this week and it is divine.

I love a hearty soup when it's cold outside, but they can be so heavy and bad for you that I end up feeling like a blob afterwards. This soup used cauliflower as the base, so it's still thick and satisfying, but you won't feel bad when you lick the bowl clean. :)

I made it in the slow cooker, but if you want to make it quickly, all you have to do is the follow the same instructions, but do the adaptation below!

Skinny Gluten-Free Baked Potato Soup

Ingredients:

Makes 5 servings.

-2 Russet Potatoes

-1 small head of cauliflower- stem removed and cut into florets

-1 1/2 cup chicken broth

-1 1/2 cup low fat milk (I used Lactaid and it was fine!)

-6 tbs chives

-4 strips of bacon (we used turkey bacon) cooked and crumbled

-1/2 cup sour cream

-At least a cup of cheddar cheese...more if you're like me!

-Salt & Pepper to taste

Directions:

-Pierce potatoes with a fork and microwave for 5 minutes. Flip and microwave another 3-5 minutes, or until tender.

-At the same time, steam cauliflower until tender.

-In a food processor or blender, blend cauliflower, 1 and a half of the potatoes, broth, and milk. I left out half of a potato to peel and cut into chunks for the soup. If you prefer soup without chunks, go ahead and blend both potatoes.

-Pour into slow cooker. (At this point, if you are not using a slow cooker, bring mixture to a boil, then lower to low, add 1/2 the chives, 1/2 the bacon, and a halndful of cheese. Then cook for 5 minutes).

-Add sour cream, a handful of cheese, 1/2 the bacon and 1/2 the chives. Mix well

This weekend, it was in the negatives and might as well have been snowing cats and dogs so I'm pretty sure I spent 80% of Saturday and Sunday in my pajamas and in front of a warm fire.

Ok half of that first sentence is a lie. It doesn't get into the negatives nor does it ever snow here in Texas but at 30-something degrees, I was convinced one of the two were bound to happen. I was also convinced this weekend that I'm just a big ol' wuss when it comes to winter weather and am already counting down the days 'til summer. There. I said it.

All that to be said, Saturday morning was spent getting ready for Thanksgiving (my first year to EVER host a holiday dinner!!), assembling more new bar stoools, decorating, as well as hanging stuff on my nekkid walls. And by "stuff" I mean, the printed photos I just framed from our recent photoshoot. I swear, I'm posting all the pics tomorrow from 'said' photoshoot but in the meantime, you're in for a little lesson today. That's right...today I'm teaching you, my friend, how to...

Tie the perfect burlap bow!

You know...because tying the perfect burlap bow IS a necessity in life, I tell ya and this little tutorial I found and followed on Pinterest is life changing.

Ok so first things first, you'll want to cut a big piece of burlap ribbon. This was the 2.5 inch wired burlap ribbon stuff from Hobby Lobby (where else?). For the frames I was adhering them to, I cut off about a 3 foot piece. When it comes to making bows of any kind, more is always better. Don't you ever forget that now, k?

Lay your burlap out flat and locate the middle section.

Then you'll want to cross the burlap somewhere in the middle, as shown below.

Now, you'll pinch the burlap smack dap in the middle with your fingers to give it it's bow-like shape. If you notice one "ear" is bigger on one side than the other, now's the perfect time to adjust it.

Here's what the front should look like:

Now, a very important step in keeping your bow held together...you must tie it off with something. You can use floral wire or if you don't feel like messing with wire cutters like me, just a thin piece of ribbon will do the trick. Tie it in a knot around the middle section-that's all ya need. It doesn't really matter what you use here because it's going to be covered anyway.

Now, you'll want to take another piece of burlap (I used a different color and a thinner type) to cover up the middle section of your bow.

Simply cut out your piece of burlap, wrap it around the middle section of your bow, and hot glue that baby in place.

Bada bing. Bada boom.

You just tied the perfect burlap bow and no actual "tying" was even involved! I swear, it's magical.

And here's my final masterpiece, if you will!

The navy blue frames are originally from Hobby Lobby in size 8x10 and I absolutely love the way they look in our house! There are a few different colors/sizes in these frames and yes, you need them in your life.

And there you have it, my friends. Now go! And hot glue burlap bows onto everything you own!

The Monogrammed Life

Welcome to The Monogrammed Life, a fashion and lifestyle blog owned by Marleylilly - Monogrammed Gifts! Thanks for stopping by! We hope you'll stick around and find some inspiration here. Peace, love, and monograms!